The Deadline

by Kiki Swinson

  “Nope. There’s nothing going on, except what I’ve already said,” I answered, shaking my head emphatically. “Just that good ole work stress getting to me, that’s all.” I had to sip the hot-ass tea to keep from spilling the beans. Obviously, I was itching to talk to someone. These were the moments I wished I would’ve continued therapy after we left the foster care system. Back then, they forced us to get counseling, so I had always been against it.

  “Yeah, okay. I know better, but I’ll wait until you’re ready,” my mother came back, her mouth twisted to the side.

  “Right, cuz you’re such a mom,” I said sarcastically.

  “Don’t go getting snippy and nasty about it, just because I am concerned. I know I wasn’t always the best mother, but I am still your mother, and my love and concern for you and Kyle never wavered . . . ever,” my mother shot back. I could hear crackles of hurt stringing through her words.

  I lowered my eyes and stared down into my cup of tea. Admittedly, my smart remark was a low blow and meant to jab at my mother. I was sorry, but I couldn’t bring myself to say “I’m sorry” to her. Sometimes my leftover anger for her for the past crept out at times like this. I knew she was right. She had always acknowledged the wrong she’d done, but it wasn’t easy for Kyle and me to just accept sometimes. We had suffered a lot of hurt and pain while she tried to fight her addiction. I’d learned over the years that addiction is a disease and needed constant treatment, but I wasn’t always just accepting of it. Like now, she wanted to be all concerned, when she wasn’t the years we lived in foster care and got abused.

  “So, like I said, I already know something is up and I’m here when you’re ready to tell me what it is,” my mother continued. I must say, she didn’t give up easily when she felt strongly about something. I guess that was where Kyle and I got it from.

  “You’re right. I know you care. But this time, you’re going to have to ignore whatever you think you know and go with it,” I said, annoyed that she kept insisting that she knew something was wrong.

  “I won’t ignore, I’ll just wait,” my mother replied, her eyebrows in high arches on her face.

  “Oh, my God, you just don’t quit,” I grunted, still on the defensive. It was bad enough how I was feeling—nauseous, not sleeping, worried all of the time. I was coming apart at the seams and it was clear. I had to get away from my mother before I gave in and just blurted out the details of the murder. This was definitely more than I had bargained for, just to get a good story. And where was Christian? Somewhere sitting on a high horse, waiting for me to come in and crown her the head bitch of ratings. The thought infuriated me all over again.

  “Well, like I said, I am your mother and part of that is never giving up when you know your kids are in distress. Now, to change the subject, I made your favorite . . . German chocolate cake. Have some and enjoy it. Maybe it’ll be so good, you’ll finally want to share with me what is going on,” my mother said, repeating the same thing again, as if something about my decision was going to change. She was still eyeing me suspiciously. She’s a damn trip!

  “Thanks for the cake, Mama,” I said, sounding as calm as I could. I knew she was dead serious about not giving up. I was going to have to break down and go home and be alone. If I stayed at my mother’s house, she was going to wear me down with questions. Shit, at this point I didn’t know if I’d ever come back. That was, of course, until the next scary thing happened while I chased this story.

  5

  MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICES

  It took me another day before I actually went back to my apartment. And it was another two after that before I was ready to return to the office to see what the atmosphere was like. I wasn’t ready to tell Christian about my story prospect just yet. Or so I thought.

  As soon as I rounded the corner near the main floor of the news station studio, I could hear her voice rising and falling on waves of anger and vituperative words. Her usual. I froze, hid at the side of the wall, peeked around the corner, and listened for a moment. For a change I wasn’t the one standing there while Christian yelled, screamed, threatened, and told me how terrible I was. It felt kind of good to be watching and not receiving this time around.

  “Are you a fucking idiot or what?” Christian snapped from the executive producer’s chair she occupied at WXOT-TV. She was so drunk with power it dripped off of her every word. Her face looked like a witch’s right before the witch threw you into her burning cauldron of hot liquid. Oh, my goodness, Christian was even uglier when she was mad like this.

  “I mean, I can’t send you to do one fucking thing without a bunch of instructions. How do you ever expect to rise to actual reporting if you can’t even put decent segments together?” Christian continued her tirade. “I guess they’re always pushing you people up the ladder and out front like some affirmative-action bullshit, but if they knew half of what I know—which is that you have half a damn brain—they’d keep your ass right where I have you. Where’s Khloé or my favorite, Amber? People who studied hard and don’t mind getting out there and getting their hands dirty for a story,” Christian went on, destroying someone with her words. This was what she lived for daily.

  A flash of heat came over me at the mention of my name. I guess it wasn’t a bad thing that Christian had said my name in sort of a complimentary way. Being mentioned in the same sentence with Amber made me cringe, though.

  Liza, the entertainment-desk production assistant, who had the unfortunate luck to be the current victim of Christian’s tyrannical rant, looked like she was going to cry. Her caramel-colored face and neck turned deep red with embarrassment under the scrutinizing stares of the crew. She let out a long sigh that blew a few scraggly pieces of her naturally curly hair out of her face. The entire back of her blouse was soaked with sweat and she looked queasy, like she’d vomit any minute. I knew that feeling. Watching her made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Aniston,” Liza said weakly as she scrambled around, nervously gathering all of her papers into her arms. A few pieces floated to the floor at her feet. “I . . . I . . . thought this was what you wanted. You said anything about the Kardashians or the Carters that hadn’t already been reported on b-by TMZ or Access Hollywood, so . . . I . . . I . . . th-thought . . .” Liza was stuttering, going in literal circles.

  “And you think a story about them hating each other or about their children competing in the media hasn’t been done before?” Christian scoffed. “That’s your problem, girl. You think you know too much about what I want, instead of getting out there and actually getting me what I want. You’ve been here awhile now, this is unacceptable. I can only conclude one thing . . . that you’re stupid,” Christian said.

  Liza looked like she’d died inside a thousand times. It was hard to watch. With every insult Christian hurled, I cringed and winced. If I could feel the pain of it, imagine what Liza was feeling.

  “Get her away from me, please.” Christian waved her hand dismissively. “I have no time for half-wits and dimwits, which I seemed to be surrounded by these days.”

  I exhaled and shivered as I remembered the feeling of taking that same type of verbal abuse, over and over again. It was the kind of browbeating that could make a bitch off herself at home. Liza finally scurried away like a child who’d just been released from time-out in the corner. It was a shame that we had to come to work and endure that type of abuse.

  Christian put her handheld mirror in front of her face to check her hair and makeup. After a tirade like that, I guess she had to make sure her face hadn’t fallen off. Christian’s wrinkled white skin needed more work to look like something than anyone I’d ever seen. The makeup artist at the studio worked hard to put a good face on Christian daily. Although she was only forty-two, Christian looked more like sixty-two. I often found myself thinking, If she were black, she wouldn’t crack. At least not like that. Sometimes I wondered if her evil ways were what made her look so old, so fast, too. I shrugged. Who car
es? She was a tyrant, and that was the conclusion everyone at the studio had come to all on our own. There wasn’t one person at WXOT-TV that hadn’t been victim to Christian Aniston. Oh, maybe except . . . Amber Darby, my archenemy in life.

  Just as Christian put her mirror down, I watched as Amber sauntered over with a smug smile on her face. Her pale white skin gleamed with perfectly applied makeup, and her hair lay limp in the flat way those white girls I refer to as “Beckys” did. Just hanging there, blah and stringy, so that they were always using their hands to move it out of there face or push it behind their ears. Amber thought she was the shit at the station.

  I hated Amber, and it was that simple. I followed her with my eyes, with steam coming out of my ears. The close-fitting, bright orange wrap dress Amber wore played up her striking blue eyes. She had graduated from Christian’s personal assistant to an actual on-screen reporting entertainment journalist. She replaced a black woman named Sandra. I watched from the sidelines with my insides boiling, as if someone had just lit a fire in my chest. It wasn’t jealousy either. It was a real, deep hatred.

  “More mistakes?” Amber asked Christian, following Liza with her eyes as the girl scrambled for the door. “Damn, what a difference a year makes. She went from doing no wrong to doing everything wrong. I guess she has been exposed for the dummy that she was all along,” Amber sniped, boldly climbing into the chair next to Christian’s. I shook my head and curled my hands into fists. If only I could run out there and punch that bitch in the face, I would have.

  “Ugh, please. That little girl gets on my last nerve. I mean, I can’t see how any of these little dummies keep a job. None of them are capable. I might have to get back on-screen to save this station if none of them will step it up,” Christian replied, trying to stay still while the masseuse, whom she’d had the station hire just for her, kneaded her shoulder muscles. Watching her in action was really something to behold. I shook my head some more. I was surrounded by a bunch of dingy bitches at work. They were airhead hos, with MBAs in communication and journalism, with fake-ass tits, and with a desire to become the next big thing. But their ship had sailed, because I will be the next “It girl” around here. I can promise them that.

  “Well, that’s why you’re the queen on the throne now, and the former executive producer is working in some public-access station’s back room. She hired all of these half-a-brain people and now you have to clean up her mess,” Amber snickered. “Maybe she should have taken them all with her—Liza . . . that other girl . . . what’s her name . . . um . . . Khloé. They don’t deserve the spotlight, if you ask me,” Amber went on, looking at her nails in the pretentious, snobby way she always did.

  I jumped at the sound of my name, and her saying it made me bite down harder on my lip, which I’d been already gnawing. I bit down so hard that I drew blood and could taste it.

  Amber knew my name damn well, because she hated me, and I hated her. She was so jealous of me that she’d do anything to get rid of me or to make me look bad in Christian’s eyes. Amber knew I was smarter, prettier, and more popular than she was with everyone else at the station, except for Christian.

  Christian and Amber shared a laugh at the idea of our old executive producer shuffling around in some dusty, off-brand television studio, looking for a story to report on, with Liza and me going around in circles with her. Amber would’ve loved nothing more than to have that happen. Over my dead body was what I always told myself. Amber was not going to win by getting rid of me. I wasn’t having it. I’ve built so much since I’ve been here. Made a lot of sacrifices too.

  “Thank God for you and me, because we have the sense we were born with . . . These others must’ve missed that line.” Christian had followed up with a joke of her own, but that shit wasn’t funny to me.

  In fact, my heart lurched in my chest; it started throbbing so hard, it hurt. However, I stood my ground a little bit longer. I wanted to hear how far these two would go with their insults. I wanted them to give me a reason. Give me more ammunition.

  “They missed that line!” Amber echoed, raising her hand to slap five with Christian. More raucous laughter ensued between the mentor and her protégée. Amber wanted to be just like Christian. I’d watched Amber take copious notes each day on Christian’s wardrobe and then she would go out and purchase either the same items or things that were strikingly similar. She even tried to do her hair like Christian’s. When the boss got a new look, which was pretty old-ladyish for a young girl like Amber, she would still come in looking like a Christian clone. In fact, one of the station hands had told me he’d heard Amber quietly repeating those words to herself each morning, like a mantra: “Think it and you will be it. I’m going to be just like you. Just like you, Christian Aniston. I’m going to be so much like you, they won’t need you.”

  I could tell that Christian loved the fact that she was able to take her old boss Lucy Cole’s job as executive producer of the station. Christian also relished the fact that she was able to change the tide at the station, where uplifting and hiring minorities had been Lucy’s priority after years of discrimination against us. Christian would have nothing of the sort. She had quickly changed the faces of the people in the important roles to ones that looked like hers—pale, pale, pale. Because of Christian’s tactics, Lucy’s role was missed instantly. But there was no turning back.

  Christian’s newfound clout and power at WXOT-TV was rumored to be because she’d slept her way to the top and brought in exclusive stories, which I heard she had embellished all along the way. They couldn’t risk letting Christian run to a rival station, so they not only gave Christian her boss’s job, they also let Christian hire and fire whomever she wanted. She was running things . . . literally. I knew that wasn’t going to change anytime soon, so either I was going to get on board and fight for the prime-time spot, or I was going to be fired or worse, have to quit out of sheer embarrassment.

  I finally stepped from behind the wall as if I hadn’t been standing there listening to these two racist bitches carry on from the start. I was glad to break up their little mean-girl gossip party. Although I wished I could break it up by breaking Amber’s face. Whew! My disdain for that girl ran deep.

  “Ah, would you look at what the cat dragged in,” Christian said, turning her attention and vile attitude toward me. She did the sarcastic Nancy Pelosi extended-arms, finger-tap, clapping motion. Oh, my God! I wanted to curse her out so badly.

  Instead, I swallowed hard and rolled my eyes a little. Just a little, not enough to show a lot of attitude, but just enough to say I was not in the mood for the shenanigans. It was too early in the fucking morning for it.

  “Morning, Christian,” I grumbled. I still wasn’t sleeping, so I was cranky and certainly was not in the mood for the bullshit. “Just letting you know I’m back.”

  “And just where have you been?” Amber asked sarcastically.

  “I took some sick days but I was also given time away from the office to work on my story,” I shot back, instinctively rolling my neck like a homegirl would. If eyes could kill, Amber would’ve exploded on the spot, like I had put a grenade up her ass, which, of course, would’ve made my day run so much smoother.

  “Hmph,” Amber mumbled, and folded her arms across her chest. “Missing from work, looking a mess, can’t find a good story . . . need I go on?”

  “Listen, you don’t want none today, Amber. Oh, trust me,” I said, pounding my left fist into my right palm. “You don’t want no smoke over here, girl.”

  “Enough, ladies,” Christian interjected, turning her eyes back to me. “So, Miss Khloé, what do you have for me today?” Christian asked, rubbing her hands together like a greedy kid in a candy store. My eyes darted straight over to Amber and I gave her a look as if to say, Get the hell out of here, you snake. I wasn’t about to reveal anything about my news story in front of that backstabbing bitch Amber. She’d backstabbed me once before, and whenever I was forced to be around Amber, my mind automaticall
y shot backward to that day . . .

  * * *

  It had been a hot-ass, heat wave–type July day in the Norfolk area and I was flustered after I had come outside to find that my piece-of-shit car had overheated for the fifth time in two weeks. I was brand-new at the station, and there I stood, in front of the open hood, while steam literally shot up from under the car hood like a hot-springs geyser. My cheeks felt sunburned and sweat had plastered my hair to my head like I had styled it that way with gel. The sun was beaming down on me unmercifully; my body was drenched in so much sweat, you would’ve thought I’d just run through a sprinkler. Water poured off of me— from my armpits, down my legs, between my breasts, and down my back. I got hotter and hotter with each movement I made, and, of course, these thick thighs of mine were rubbing together. I had just broken up with Dominic, my boyfriend, so I couldn’t call him to come and help me with the car. I had called Kyle’s cell phone over ten times with no answer or callback, which was odd and certainly not like him.

  “Where the hell is Kyle when I need his ass,” I huffed. I called him six or seven more times before I got so angry, I felt like throwing my phone on the ground and smashing it. But had I done that, then I’d be broke with no car and no phone. You would think Kyle might realize I was calling him for an emergency and answer his damn phone. But still, nothing. My mother didn’t believe in cell phones and I knew she was at her NA meeting during that time anyway, so there was no use in me calling her old-school house phone. No luck. I was out of luck.